Deuteronomy 8:15

Summary

The verse continues a description of Yehovah's actions toward the people during the wilderness journey, describing the terrain traversed — a "great and awesome" wilderness with dangerous creatures and lack of water — and the provision of water from flint rock. The sentence structure builds two parallel participial clauses describing what "he" did.

Key words

• mo.Li.kha ("led", H1980J) — hiphil participle with causative force ("the one causing to walk"), attached to the 2ms suffix -kha ("you"), forming a construct-like phrase "the one leading you."
• no.Ra' ("awesome", H3372G) — niphal participle, meaning "the one being feared/inspiring fear," describing the wilderness alongside ga.Dol ("great", H1419A).
• sa.Raf ("fiery", H8314A) — noun in apposition to na.Chash ("snake", H5175), literally "snake, fiery [one]," describing a type of serpent.
• tzi.ma.'on ("thirsty ground", H6774) — noun describing the terrain itself as "thirst" or "thirsty-ground," parallel to the creatures listed before it.
• mo.Tzi' ("brought forth", H3318L) — hiphil participle, causative, "the one bringing out," parallel in form to mo.Li.kha at the verse's start, both describing continuous/characteristic action.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence is built on two participial phrases functioning almost as titles or descriptions of an implied subject (Yehovah, established in surrounding verses): ha-mo.Li.kha ("the one leading you") and ha-mo.Tzi' ("the one bringing forth [water] for you"). Both are hiphil participles with the definite article ha (H9009), a common construction in Hebrew for describing ongoing characteristic actions of a subject, often translatable as relative clauses ("who leads you," "who brings out for you").

The wilderness is qualified by two adjectival/participial descriptors, ga.Dol ("great") and no.Ra' ("awesome," from a niphal root meaning "to be feared"), then further specified by a list of three dangers in apposition: na.Chash sa.Raf ("snake, fiery" — a serpent so described), 'ak.Rav ("scorpion", H6137), and tzi.ma.'on ("thirsty ground/thirst", H6774). The clause 'a.sher 'ein-mayim ("where there is no water") uses the negative existential 'ein (H0369) in construct with mayim ("water", H4325G), a standard Hebrew way of stating absence.

The final clause shifts to the positive counterpart: water is brought mi-tzur ha-chala.mish ("from the rock of the flint"), with tzur (H6697H) in construct governing chala.mish ("flint", H2496), specifying the type of rock.

Differences between versions

The LXX renders tzimma'on ("thirsty ground") with a term reflected only partially in the Greek text provided (the transmitted Greek shows a gap where this word would appear), while the Vulgate translates it as dipsas, a Latin/Greek loanword denoting a type of serpent, differing from the Hebrew's sense of "thirsty ground" as a description of terrain rather than a creature. The Vulgate also adds rivos ("streams," plural) where the Hebrew has singular mayim ("water"), and specifies "brought forth" as eduxit without the causative nuance carried by the Hebrew hiphil participle mo.Tzi'.